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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29013768">The Things That Mattered</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/kosmosxipo/pseuds/kosmosxipo'>kosmosxipo</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Blaseball (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canada Moist Talkers (Blaseball Team), Gen, Hades Tigers (Blaseball Team)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 12:56:05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,330</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29013768</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/kosmosxipo/pseuds/kosmosxipo</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A study of my best friend, Richmond Harrison</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Richmond Harrison and Hobbs Cain</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Canada Moist Talkers Fanfiction</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Things That Mattered</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Richmond Harrison did not think in warbles and trills. He thought in words and phrases like anyone else. He had memories he could smell and taste, he had dreams that felt real, and dreams he knew weren’t. Few people knew this about him, and fewer people would ask. He wasn’t mad. Richmond wasn’t the kind of person that got mad about much. And maybe that’s why people thought about him the way they did.</p><p>Richmond Harrison was aware that people thought he was… simple, for lack of better words. He figured this was for a few reasons: he didn’t speak their language, and because he didn’t react to much in the world around him. They asked, Does he know he’s on the Tigers now? They asked, Does he even know he’s playing Blaseball? They asked, Is he aware of where he is? Richmond was aware that he wasn’t like a lot of his teammates. He knew that this made him strange, that they didn’t understand him.</p><p>The thing was, Richmond Harrison didn’t act like us because he thought about things differently. To Richmond, there were things that mattered, and things that did not matter. Everything in his life could be divided into either category. </p><p>Family mattered. He knew that once, he was in a different place, before Blaseball. He knew that he was around others like him. He remembers their faces but not their names. Names mattered, but he wasn’t sure if they mattered to his kind. Blaseball took him away from them. </p><p>Blaseball mattered. He knew Blaseball was his life, and that he had to play ball whether he wanted to or not. Richmond Harrison decided that he would figure out how to live with Blaseball. He helped his teammates, he stood face to face with the umpires, he did not blink. He even drank a little blood when it was given to him, but honestly, who hasn’t done that?</p><p>(The answer to that question did not matter.)</p><p>Words mattered. The people around him were a constant, beautiful fount of language. To Richmond, their words were like songs, ballads that sang their happiness and sadness, their fears and loves. There were so many words in so many languages, and Richmond drank them all in like nectar. Richmond liked words, but he wasn’t made for words. He tried to speak, but his words came out in warbles and trills and gurgles. His first teammates, the Moist Talkers, didn’t understand most of the time, but they tried. They developed gestures that Richmond could do. He couldn’t speak, but his hands worked pretty well, and before long his teammates knew how he felt. They asked him all the time after that.</p><p>His teams mattered. Like him, his teammates had life before Blaseball, and like him, Blaseball was their life, whether they wanted it or not. They didn’t have a choice, but they did have each other. Richmond liked his teams. When he was taken off the Moist Talkers and moved to Hades, he didn’t understand why. There were reasons, and as far as he could tell, those reasons probably didn’t matter. But his new team did. They were kind to him, seeking to accommodate his needs as best they could. Richmond couldn’t give them thanks, a word he loved, but he could tell them he noticed. The Moist Talkers taught him how to show thanks with his hands, how to make the symbol of a heart. He would show this to the Tigers to say thanks. When he saw his old teammates, he showed them that symbol because he knew they would understand how he felt. They were apart, but they were still his team.</p><p>Love mattered. Richmond Harrison knew that love could be many things. Love could be his new team, the Tigers, finding him a cool river to spend time in between games, because they knew his new home was uncomfortable. Love could be Ziwa Mueller making sure to talk to him every day. Ziwa could understand Richmond, and they would talk for hours. Ziwa wasn’t his people but they were like him in many ways. They understood each other. Love could be taking a hit from Jaylen because he knew that she had to hit someone, and that if she hit him, that would save someone else the pain. And anyway, Jaylen couldn’t help it. Love could be realizing that some things are out of people’s control, and letting go of the pain they caused.</p><p>Death mattered. Richmond Harrison knew that death could come for any of them. He didn’t like death, but he knew he couldn’t avoid it. Death, like Blaseball, was inevitable. Death caused sadness and pain and grief. It hurt his teammates. Richmond hated the umpires for that. He hated the Peanut, the shattered god that brought pain to so many. Richmond saw Hobbs Cain die. He hated the memory of that moment. He hated that he can still hear it. He hated that he can smell it. But he could see in that moment Hobbs spit in the mouth of the umpire, staring the umpire down. He did not look at Richmond, and Richmond understood. That memory mattered.</p><p>Grief mattered. Richmond Harrison did not want grief to matter, but it did. It was all around him. He knew that, like him, his teammates, the other players on every team, all had grief. Richmond did not like how it made him feel, and knew that other people felt the same. So Richmond tried to find happiness where he could. He was happy when flowers bloomed in the outfield, against all odds. He was happy when in rained. He was happy when he got to see his old teammates. He was happy for Party Time, and siestas, and the success of his team. He was happy that everyone started calling him “my best friend.” Richmond knew that started after Hobbs died. He knew that everyone else knew he was hurting, and they wanted to make him feel better. After that, Richmond had a lot of friends. People always came to say hi to him. When he entered a room, or took to the field, or wanderd at Party Time, people pointed and said, “That’s my best friend, Richmond Harrison. Is he your best friend too?” He was happy that they cared for him. </p><p>Hobbs Cain mattered. Like Ziwa, Hobbs could understand Richmond. They were not friends right away. Hobbs always seemed angry, and Richmond really didn’t understand why. Hobbs told him once that it was because of a curse. Richmond told him he never thought he was cursed, and anyway, curses didn’t matter. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Hobbs said, and skulked away. Hobbs came back at practice the next day. “Here,” he said, and he gave Richmond a bag of Krill Chips. “These are pretty good.” Richmond had never gotten a gift before. He had never had a friend before. He had teammates, who all mattered, but Hobbs didn’t treat him like a teammate. Hobbs told things to Richmond that he didn’t tell anyone else, the things that mattered to him. After that, they looked for each other at practice, and they stuck close. Sometimes, when things were good, Richmond would pick up Hobbs and put him on his shoulders. Hobbs didn’t understand, not at first, but he knew what it meant when Richmond did this, even though Richmond never told him. Richmond knew this was because they were friends.</p><p>Richmond Harrison wished Hobbs could see how many friends he had now. He wished Hobbs could be there to see it when the Tigers awarded him MVP. He wished Hobbs could be there when someone called him their best friend, because he wished Hobbs could hear how he practiced his words. He had dreams of speaking his carefully practiced words to them, “Hobbs Cain is my best friend.” Someday, he would be able to tell them.</p><p>Hobbs Cain mattered.</p><p>Hobbs Cain would always matter.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Shout out to cyndakip, who suggested that we all call Richmond Harrison "my best friend" because we are trying to help him feel better about losing Hobbs. You're totally right and I haven't stopped thinking about that since.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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